It’s a small-scope, deeply immersive novel with a great deal of understated intricacy and thought underlying its premises, executed with an attention to rhetoric befitting a book in which language plays such a prominent role.
Elements of Eloquence Review
For breaking down rhetorical figures, showing them in use, and highlighting how they appear and affect the reader, Elements of Eloquence is a valuable primer and reminder.
Reaching for Words
I am more aware of the words I am choosing, I think about the writing itself more with each sentence, and that is a problem. It makes me more aware of the gap, makes the gap between the story I want to tell and what seems to be appearing on the page loom larger.
An Oblique Approach to Reality
Thinking of poetry as an oblique approach to reality reframes my understanding of poems and helps explain why I’ve always struggled with writing original poems, but it doesn’t mean I can suddenly write poetry.
Using Stock Phrases
The language we use has meaning and depths we don’t always consciously recognize, and stock phrases often convey meanings and suggestions which we don’t fully recognize and which we probably don’t intend when we deploy them in our writing.
Memories Like Roses Author’s Note and Release
Memories Like Roses is an initial attempt to capture some of those thoughts in story form, to explore the inherent conflict that seems present in translation through the medium of storytelling. Somehow, I doubt it will be my last word on the subject.
The Language of AI
Tailored machine learning mechanisms and large language models can be far more useful, but ideas about AI “going rogue”, and the more revolutionary predictions for the capabilities, are rather overblown and unrealistic. Some of these misconceptions may come from the language we use.
Author’s Voice and Oral Literature
I propose that author’s voice arises from the particular authorial idiosyncrasies that make the story distinct to how a given author would tell it, as compared to how any other author might attempt to convey the same story elements.
Languages in Fiction
Language is a funny thing, and for all authors should be preoccupied with it, we sometimes seem to forget to reflect linguistic variety in our fiction.
Two-Way Storytelling
It took growing my confidence as a writer, and reflecting on oral storytelling traditions and the performative nature of language, to realize that storytelling isn’t a one-way street, that I am not so much telling a story, dictating it via text, as I am sharing it with a fellow traveler along the journey that the story describes.
IGC Publishing 